


the world was built for two

by thorgasmed



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Background Allison Argent/Scott McCall - Freeform, Break Up, Coming out (kind of), Drunken Confessions, First Dates, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Lack of Communication, M/M, Making Up, Marijuana, Meeting the Parents, Misunderstandings, Past Stiles Stilinski/Derek Hale - Freeform, Sexile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:50:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorgasmed/pseuds/thorgasmed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m not asking to marry you, Stiles. I’m just asking if I can take you out to a fucking petting zoo or something and then kiss you goodnight.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the world was built for two

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by [curlee_cue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/curlee_cue) but i lost her edit so i ended up just using the feedback she gave me in an email to fix some things? i'm terribly unorganized, gomen. title taken from lana del rey's "video games", which i listened to heavily and helped set the tone for the story, i think.

This isn’t the first time Isaac has been sexiled from the small apartment he shares with Scott, and it surely won’t be the last. Which bugs him, it really does, but he’s too nice to say anything. Just like he’s too nice to remind Scott to do his own dishes, to stop using up his shampoo, to crack a window or at least use some goddamn Febreeze after smoking in his room. So instead of complaining that it’s after midnight, he frowns at the tube sock tied around the doorknob, pulls his phone out and calls Boyd.

 

He and Scott are friends, as close as roomies can be who just met in the fall. They hang out sometimes, they’ve met each other’s friends, but Isaac has a full schedule and Scott works part-time, so he wouldn’t label them as particularly _close_. But Scott is a good guy, so Isaac is pleasant about it. He just needs to get his shit in gear, that’s all.

 

The walk isn’t too bad, not far enough that Isaac would waste gas money. Besides, he’s used to it. Allison is a sweet girl, and though her and Scott’s relationship has been on and off since the start of the school year, he really thinks they’re good for each other. So rain or shine, he makes his way twenty minutes across campus to another student apartment building three or four times a month, and has been diligently doing so since November.

 

May is coming up.

 

Isaac has the patience of a saint.

 

The door’s already open—he politely refuses his own key, though he’s earned it by now—and Boyd’s setting up the sofa bed in the living room while Erica sacrifices two pillows from the plush mountain in her room. “I love you guys.” He sighs, shrugging off his jacket.

 

“We know.” They say in unison.

 

He grins apologetically. “Any leftovers?”

 

“Lasagna, fridge. Blue Tupperware.” Erica says through a yawn. She has her curls piled into a messy bun on the top of her head and she’s already in barely-shorts that she swears count as ‘sleepwear’. Boyd’s in pajama pants and has his glasses on. He probably woke them up, which never ceases to make him feel terrible, but he’s said sorry a thousand times over and they refuse to hear it. It’s not his fault, and they know that. It just sucks that he can’t do anything about it. Confrontation has never been his strong suit.

 

He kicks his shoes off and lines them up neatly at the door. “Don’t let me keep you up guys, I’m fine.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.” Boyd says sleepily, “Seven AM wake-up call tomorrow?”

 

“Sounds good, I’ve got class at nine.” Isaac salutes, and they disappear into their respective rooms.

 

Erica’s lasagna is great, it always is. She doesn’t care for the store-bought shit. The futon’s a little lumpy, and the thought crosses his mind that he should buy them a new one. Which is dumb, because he shouldn’t have to.

 

He tells himself that this’ll shitty routine will end eventually. Maybe Allison’s roommate, Lydia, will move out with her boyfriend Jackson so Scott can move in with her. Or maybe he could move in with Ethan, Aiden, and Danny, who have a spare room in their shared house now that Matt dropped out. Or maybe he can just throw himself into the ocean because that seems like a lot less work.

 

So he eats the lasagna and watches a late-night rerun of Grey’s Anatomy and dozes off, resigning himself to a couple more months of back problems from sleeping on a cheap sofa and the How To Be Assertive self-help books that are calling his name at the library.

 

||

 

It’s after lunch by the time he runs into Scott again, at the juice bar beside the school’s fitness centre. In an attempt to kick his coffee habit, he’s been getting healthier, juicier alternatives every day. They’re good, and walking around sipping one makes it look like he actually goes to the gym.

 

“Sorry!” Scott exclaims, pushing an extra large mango smoothie into his hands. “Dude, no seriously, I am beyond sorry. I know you asked me to like, tell you in advance if she’s gonna be spending the night, but I totally didn’t plan on it, I mean, we were just fighting the day before and she came over to talk about it, and you know how these things go—”

 

“I do.” He doesn’t. “It’s totally fine, though.” It wasn’t.

 

Scott pauses, hands hovering over Isaac’s shoulders in uncertainty. “Are we good?”

 

Isaac nods, smiling around the straw as he gets a cold mouthful of mango.

 

“Right on.” He smiles back, and drags him out to lunch—his treat—at a pizza place down the street. They cram into a booth, squeezing right in with Allison, Lydia, and Stiles, Scott’s best friend from their hometown. Isaac gets along with them well enough, and they force-feed him stuffed crust slices that he accepts happily after he’s picked all the mango fibers out of his teeth.

 

“You look like hell, dude.” Stiles wrinkles his nose at him in sympathy. “No offense.”

 

“None taken.” Isaac shrugs, licking tomato sauce off his thumb. “Had a late night.”

 

“Which I apologise for.” Allison slides another pizza slice towards him. “Seriously, I feel horrible.”

 

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get my revenge one day.” He smirks and promises half-heartedly.

 

Scott snorts. “You planning on sexiling me, buddy?”

 

“Well, what if I am?”

 

“You couldn’t!” He laughs.

 

Isaac raises an eyebrow. “Couldn’t I?”

 

Scott sobers immediately. “Well, I didn’t mean you _couldn’t,_ I just meant like... You _wouldn’t._ ”

 

“Yeah, you’re too gentlemanly.” Stiles nudges him with his elbow as he reaches across the table for the creamy garlic dipping sauce. Isaac nudges him back. “Not like Caveman Scott over here.”

 

“You don’t hook up much, do you?” Lydia asks suddenly, regarding Isaac as she cocks her head to the side. “We’ve known you for months and I don’t think you’ve mentioned dating anyone this whole time.”

 

“I date.” He says defensively. “I’ve just been busy.” He doesn’t mention that he hasn’t been on a date since summer, or that he hasn’t gotten laid since high school. “I’m on a full scholarship; I have a lot on my plate. I don’t have the time for girls.”

 

“Take a night off.” The way Lydia says it sounds like she’s daring him to say no. “Jackson and his roommates are throwing a kegger this weekend.”

 

They chatter excitedly about it while Isaac chews thoughtfully on his pepperoni. He isn’t expecting any major assignments due early next week and his weekends usually consist of Xbox and crunchy cheddar jalapeno Cheetos anyway.

 

Stiles offers him a sip of his fountain drink, a weird combination of possibly three different sodas, but it’s a kind gesture and Isaac chokes back the burp that ensues. He announces that he’ll come, and saves the address into his phone. After he thanks everyone for the food, he packs up and heads off to his next class, feeling marginally better. But it could just be the pizza.

 

||

 

A couple days later, Scott knocks on his bedroom door while he’s bent over his desk, squinting at equations he couldn’t hate more if they punched his mother in the face. “Come in.” He mumbles, rubbing at his eyes tiredly.

 

Scott pokes his head in, sad-puppy-eyes in full effect. “Can we talk?”

 

Isaac motions for him to come in, where Scott takes a seat on the bed and _literally_ twiddles his thumbs in contemplation.

 

“Something wrong?” Isaac scoots his chair closer.

 

“No. Well, kind of.” Scott looks up at him. “It’s just been bothering me, a few days ago when I said you couldn’t sexile me and I laughed about it and you looked really offended.”

 

“I wasn’t offended! I know you were joking.”

 

“Maybe not, but I still feel bad about it, and I was thinking...” The corner of Scott’s mouth quirked downward. “You know, you can totally kick me out for the night if you wanna bring a girl over. I completely deserve it. And I encourage it, in fact.” He nods excitedly.

 

Isaac rolls his eyes. “Not gonna happen, man. I don’t have enough time to devote into looking for and maintaining a relationship, so.” He pats his laptop. “This is the only girl for me.”

 

“You could still hook up. No strings attached.”

 

“I could.”

 

“Does it suck?” Scott frowns. “Aren’t you lonely?”

 

“Sometimes.” He admits. “But taking a break from girls is probably better for me right now. My last relationship was pretty bad.”

 

“Did she cheat on you?” His eyes widen. “That’s the fucking worst.”

 

“Nah.” Isaac could laugh at the thought. “She was way into me. A little clingy, if I’m gonna be honest. Got jealous really easily, had to talk to me all day, didn’t let me breathe. And the sex was...” He grimaces at the memory. “Not good. Kind of awkward. I don’t know. I just can’t do it, college girls are intimidating.” He thinks briefly of Erica, every bit as lethal as she is stunning.

 

Scott taps a finger against his chin. “I don’t get how a guy like you has trouble getting girls. You’re smart and nice and good looking—oh, maybe you like dudes? I thought I liked dudes for a while.”

 

“I might.” He concedes. He doesn’t know how to explain how often he’s thought about it, how curious he’s always been, how he’s never had the chance to find out. Not a lot of opportunity to experiment, coming from the small town he does. “I don’t know yet.”

 

He seems to understand, nodding patiently. “Well, when I thought I liked dudes, I tried it out. You know. _‘It’._ ” Scott says, wiggling his eyebrows. “Not sex, but other stuff. It’s a learning experience, definitely.”

 

“Was it weird?”

 

He scoffs. “Surprisingly, no. Probably ‘cus it was with Stiles, and we were like fourteen, and we don’t get weird about shit with each other. He liked it, I didn’t, and that was the end of that.”

 

“Oh,” Isaac raises his eyebrows. “Stiles is gay? I didn’t know. I thought he was seeing that Cora girl, or is that not a thing anymore?” He doesn’t hang out with Scott’s friends nearly enough to be up to date on their personal lives, but being out of the loop makes him feel a little embarrassed.

 

“It’s no big deal. I don’t think he’s all-the-way-gay, anyway. They were only going out for like a month, and after they broke up, Stiles hooked up with her older brother, Derek. But don’t tell him I told you that, he feels totally bad about it.”

 

“Secret’s safe with me.” He laughs.

 

Scott stands, ruffles Isaac’s hair on his way out the door. “Good talk, man. Maybe you’ll meet some hot guys at the kegger, who knows?”

 

||

 

 _Well, Scott wasn’t wrong,_ Isaac thinks to himself the next night when he’s situated between two juniors on the rugby team in the line of people playing suck-and-blow. He nearly sloshes the whiskey out of his red cup to chase the card from his mouth, passing it off to the guy behind him as carefully as he can; whoever drops it has to take two shots and Isaac is already well into the realm of drunkenness.

 

Boyd finds him and coerces him into joining his flip cup team, and he helps hold Erica’s hair back when he finds her hurling into a bush on the front lawn. He sips from a water bottle to save him from a hangover the next morning as Allison introduces him to a few girls from her dance class. They’re pretty and giggle a lot, and one of them seeks him out a few minutes later to ask for his number. As an afterthought, he looks for one of the other girls, and gets her number too.

 

Though he came with Scott, he completely lost him within ten minutes of arriving. He refills his cup with vodka and Monster before heading outside, following the wafting smell of marijuana all the way to the big tool shed in the backyard. He knocks twice, calls out Scott’s name before the door cracks open and a reddened eye peers at him. “Oh, it’s you. Dude, get in here, you’re letting the cold air in.”

 

He shuts the door behind him and squints in the low light. A dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling sways back and forth, doing a poor job of illuminating the cramped space. Scott sits in a plastic chair in the corner, Stiles perching on a table top beside him, and a few other guys he doesn’t recognize fill up the rest of the space on the floor, passing a blunt back and forth.

 

“Isaac, this is Ryan, Nick, and Zach. You know Stiles. Obviously.” Scott smiles brightly, a purple bong nestled between his thighs. “Are you partaking this evening?”

 

“Oh, no, thanks.” He holds up his cup. “Still boozing.”

 

“Fair enough, my man.” He has his lighter poised at the popper piece before he looks to Stiles. “You?”

 

Stiles snorts, raising his arms. He has a can in each hand, literally duct taped into his palm. “Maybe later.”

 

“Holy shit.” Isaac remarks.

 

“Yeah, I made Zach lose at beer pong earlier.” He says by way of an explanation. “So this is my punishment. Can’t take them off ‘till they’re empty.” Suddenly, he twitches and yelps. “Oh my god, someone get my phone out of my pocket, it’s vibrating and I nearly just pissed myself.”

 

He hesitates for a moment, but Scott’s already reaching over to the front pocket of Stiles’ jeans. “It’s a text. From Lydia.” He reads aloud from the screen. “She says they’re setting up Century Club in the kitchen.”

 

“That’s your cue!” One of the guys on the floors laughs. “Go on, Stilinski, or were you just talking mad shit?”

 

“Hey!” Stiles snaps defensively. “I was _not_ , and I _will_ join the Century Club tonight, and you’ll owe me twenty bucks. Watch and learn, ye of little faith.” He chugs back one can, then the other, and belches so loudly that it makes everyone wince. “Isaac, buddy, a little help here?”

 

As carefully as he could, he peels the duct tape from Stiles’ fingers. “What’s Century Club?” He asks quietly.

 

“You take one shot of beer every minute for a hundred minutes. Easy shit, right?” He slurs, glasses askew on his nose. “Come with me, videotape my inevitable victory.”

 

||

 

Stiles makes it to shot number fourteen before he pukes into the kitchen sink.

 

||

 

It’s about two AM and Isaac is drunk. Not as drunk as Stiles, though, which automatically saddles him with the role of babysitter. He doesn’t mind. Scott’s nowhere to be found, but neither is Allison, so one can only assume where they’ve fucked off to. (Actually, Isaac has a pretty good idea.) Lydia and Jackson are having a shouting match in the hallway, as usual. Boyd and Erica have already left. ‘Helena Beat’ by Foster The People blasts loudly through the house, and Isaac’s joke about the song being “too dance-y” falls on deaf ears as Stiles wails about needing a toothbrush.

 

“Sorry Stiles, I can’t drive you. I’m drunk. Also I walked here. Back to my original point—I can’t drive you home.” He and Isaac are sitting on the front porch steps, getting some air in hopes of sobering up. It’s not working.

 

“I don’t need to drive, my dorm is like five minutes down the street.” He murmurs, eyes shut, getting cozy against Isaac’s shoulder.

 

“Really?” It occurs to him that he had never even asked where Stiles lives. Scott told him once that they heard enough stories about ruined friendships that they made the decision early on to never room together during college, but that’s just about all he knew.

 

“Well, okay, it’s six minutes and seventeen seconds away, if you want to get technical.”

 

“How you manage to be sarcastic when you’re this hammered is beyond me.”

 

“Don’t forget devilishly good-looking.”

 

 Isaac laughs, giving him a once over. “Okay, I guess I’ll give you that.” And it’s the truth. Stiles is lean and fit, and dresses well. He has the whole hipster thing going for him. And nice lips, long lashes, always smells good. He’s got a lot of moles, which are now drawing Isaac’s attention, dotted along his cheek and down his neck. Even under the ugly, harsh yellow of the porch lights, Stiles is undeniably handsome.

  
It’s not the first time Isaac thinks that of him, but it’s the first time it’s really struck him how much, resulting in an odd, twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach that makes him wonder.

 

“I should go home.” Stiles grumbles. “My toothbrush is calling me. And my bed. But my toothbrush first. Because I vomited.”

 

“Indeed, you did.” Isaac agrees. “I’ll walk you. I’m pretty sure our friends bailed, anyway.” He stands up and helps tug Stiles to his feet.

 

“No, you don’t have to. You live in the opposite direction, man.” He sways on the spot, leaning on the railing for support. “It’s like five minutes—”

 

“Six minutes, seventeen seconds,” Isaac reminds him.

 

“—Okay, six minutes, and then you can go back to your dorm where Scott is probably doing the dance with no pants and locked you out, Mister Virgin.”

 

Isaac frowns.

 

“Was that rude? Shit. Sorry.”

 

“No, it’s probably true. Most likely true. About Scott, I mean, not about me being a virgin.”

 

“You sly dog!” Stiles drawls, elbowing him in the side. “Fine, walk me, you can crash on my floor.”

 

He fingers the phone in his pocket, then shrugs and wraps an arm around Stiles’ shoulders. “Lead the way.”

 

||

 

Stiles pays extra for his own dorm, which is kind of like a studio apartment. Well, his dad pays for it, but he works part time at a videogame store in town to cover his other expenses. There’s a kitchenette on one side, his bed at the other end of the room, and an impressive home entertainment system set up in between them. A desk is tucked into the corner, piled high with textbooks and loose papers, and a beat-up looking arm-chair behind a coffee table, where Isaac settles into.

 

“So this is Casa de Stilinski.” He hums, looking around and getting comfortable while Stiles disappears into the bathroom. There are pictures decorating the mini fridge, band and superhero posters covering the walls. He eyes a small, packed bookshelf that houses a full collection of Chuck Palahniuk novels in varying states of falling-apart. Everything was just a little disorganized. “It’s very... You-y.”

 

“ _‘You-y’_ , is it? And you’re sure you’re an English major?” Stiles giggles, which turns into a snort. Isaac grabs a pillow off the foot of the bed and whips it at him, knocking his glasses off. “Ouch, uncalled for, uncalled for.” He complains, and then lies on his bed as he starts taking his pants off.

 

A flush colours Isaac’s cheeks. “Uh, do you have any food? I’m fucking starving.”

 

He nods to his cupboard, still wiggling his jeans down his legs before kicking them off. “I’ve got like chips and popcorn, I think I have pizza pockets.”

 

Isaac grabs a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa, finds a bag of mini Reese’s and hands it to Stiles. He remembers seeing him eat three bags in one sitting.

 

Stiles pulls his beanie off his head and runs his fingers through his wild hair with a yawn. His boxers have little Captain America shields all over them and he looks fucking adorable and when did Isaac start thinking like this about him? “So what are you doing tomorrow, do you need to wake up for work or something?”

 

“No, I don’t work.”

 

Stiles sighs. “Lucky. I have work, two to six-thirty.”

 

“Should I wake you up at a specific time?”

 

“It’s coooool.” He waves his phone in the air, spewing chocolate and peanut butter as he spoke. “I have a gnarly alarm, it’s Optimus Prime going _‘Autobots, roll out!_ ’ and if that doesn’t get someone up, nothing will.” He retrieves a remote control from under his pillow and turns the television on. “The original Evil Dead is on, is that cool?”

 

“Definitely. You’re not tired yet?” Isaac gets up to hit the lights, crunches on chips and checks his own phone. A text from the girl he met, which he saves as _Isabelle_ (or was it Annabelle?) and one from Scott asking for the number for the Indian take-out place that delivers all night, which he replies to immediately.

 

“Not really.” Stiles shifts down until he’s laying on his stomach. “That reclines, you know.”

 

Isaac feels down the side for a lever, pulls it, and the chair eases back. “Fancy and functional.”

 

“Yeah, I took it from home.”

 

“Beacon Hills?” He asks, recalling a few times Scott had talked about where he grew up.

 

“Yep. Good ol’ BH.” Stiles has a smear of chocolate on his upper lip, which proves to be far more distracting than it should be. “Hey, we’ve known each other for like seven months and this is the first time we’ve ever hung out, like the two of us. Not that I avoid you. I just think we don’t have much in common besides Scott. But I’m glad you’re his roomie, you’re pretty cool. But not cool enough that you would replace me, obviously, since I’m the coolest.” He babbles happily.

 

“Obviously.” Isaac echoes, phone buzzing to alert him of a message from Scott. “One second.”

 

**Scott: (02:42 AM) so bud r u crashing @ a girls house or wats going on**

**Isaac: (02:44 AM) no lol i’m at stiles’, since everyone else ditched us.**

**Isaac: (02:45 AM) aren’t you at our place with allison? it’s okay if you are.**

“Was that mean to say? That we have nothing in common?”

 

Isaac offers a half-shrug. “Not really. If it’s the truth, it’s the truth.”

 

“You’re so nice. You’re too fucking nice. I feel like an asshole every time we talk because that’s my kind of humour. Can you be an asshole for like thirty seconds or will you explode and die?”

 

He smiles sheepishly. “Sorry.”

 

“There you go again, apologising for nothing!” Stiles gives him the finger. “Hate you.”

 

“Nobody hates me.” Isaac says smugly. “I have curly hair and a charming demeanor.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“You wish.”

 

“I do wish.” Stiles replies, voice muffled by the pillow he was burying his face in. “God, sorry. I kinda get like that when I’ve been drinking, it’s not you. Well, no, that’s not what I meant. You’re—you know. And I’m just—I haven’t gotten laid in a couple months. Not that it’s your problem. It’s not. You should make me stop talking because this is a little horrifying for me right now.”

 

Isaac tries to keep in a laugh, and it makes him go light headed from the effort. “You want me to _make you_ stop talking?”

 

“Jesus, not like that, dude, don’t do this to me right now.” He groans, rolling over onto his back. His shirt rides up a little, exposing a dark line of hair disappearing into his boxers and a firm-looking abdomen. When he tugs it down to cover himself, Isaac catches a glimpse of chest hair, only a little and just as dark, peeking out from the top of his grey v-neck. That’s a lot more body hair than he’s used to on someone but he can’t draw his eyes away. “Ugh, the Angry Molesting Tree scene. Yuck.”

 

“Hmm?” Isaac looks to the screen and regrets it immediately. “Oh my god. It looked a lot tamer in Cabin In The Woods.”

 

“Yeah, because it wasn’t _molesting_ anyone. Pass me a chip.”

 

“Salsa?”

 

“Please.”

 

He picks the biggest tortilla chip he can find out of the bag, loads it with salsa, and carries it all the way to Stiles and sits on the edge of the bed to hand it to him.

 

Stiles misses getting it into his mouth the first time, getting red chunks all over his chin, then finally sits up and eats it noisily. “This is like real, authentic salsa.” He says through the mouthful. “Scott’s mom makes it for me whenever we go home and visit. I love Mexican food.”

 

“That’s something we have in common, then, because I love Mexican food too.” Isaac says, almost like a challenge.

 

“Do you, now?” Stiles says slowly, his eyes zero in on Isaac’s mouth. His heart races. “How does the salsa taste?”

 

“Fucking good.” He says honestly, a little quieter than he means to.

 

And then they’re kissing and Stiles’ lips taste like residual chocolate and spice from the salsa, and there’s no tongue or teeth, it’s just the gentle movement of their mouths against each other. It’s almost too much and yet, not enough, and Stiles captures his bottom lip and just _sucks_ on it, a soft pressure that makes him shiver.

 

He ignores the buzz of his phone in favour of running his palms down Stiles’ sides, settling at his waist, spanning across the small of his back. He delights in the warm, solid muscles beneath his hands. In the dim light of the television screen, they sit still, simply sharing breaths, and Isaac will later come to blame it on the dizzying heat of Stiles’ fingers roaming across his cheeks and down his neck, but he murmurs his name against his lips and asks, “Do you have condoms?”

 

Stiles drops his hands, pulling back suddenly. “Oh.” He says, expression blank. “We aren’t having sex.”

 

“Really?” It comes out of his mouth before he realizes how horrible it sounds.

 

“Yes, _really._ ” His eyebrows knit together. “Dude, did you come here expecting to?”

 

“No, no, no,” He shakes his head, tries to come up with the words but they slip through his grasp. “I just thought for a second it was going to happen, I mean, I know you like guys—”

 

Stiles scoots back on the bed, putting a foot of space between them. “What? Just because I like guys doesn’t mean I’m going to fuck every single one. Oh my fucking god, you don’t even like guys either, do you? That’s why—that’s why you’re here, you just wanted to _try it out_.”

 

“Stiles, no, it’s not like that.” He says firmly, feeling his face and ears go red. “I swear, I really wanted to kiss you, I’ve just never done anything like this before.”

 

“Like what? Hook up with a guy?” He accuses.

 

“Admittedly, yeah, that too.” He grimaces, looking away. “But I meant, this.” He pointed down at the bed. “Like, casual stuff.”

 

Stiles huffs. “Oh, perfect. That’s fucking perfect. Neither do I. So this was a huge mistake. This went too far.”

 

“I don’t regret it.” Isaac says defensively. “I would do it again. I liked it.” The words feel strangely freeing.

 

“Stop.” He shoves him aside as he gets off the bed.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Nowhere, this is my fucking room.” He picks up his hoodie off the floor and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the front pocket. He heads over to the window by the kitchenette, slides it open and sticks his head out for a smoke.

 

The guilt settles, a heavy weight in his gut. He buries his face into his hands and mumbles a litany of apologies. Stiles doesn’t respond, doesn’t even acknowledge him, just smokes one after another.

 

Seven cigarettes later and he shuts the window, walks over to the sink and rinses his mouth out. “You can stay.” He says finally, voice hoarse and low. “But please leave as soon as you can in the morning.”

 

“Thank you.” Isaac breathes. “But I think I’ve overstayed my welcome.” He gets up and gathers his things. Stiles watches him wordlessly until he gets to the door.

 

“I don’t do one night stands.” He states.

 

Isaac looks at him tiredly. “So I’ve heard.”

 

“That’s why this can’t happen. I wouldn’t want it to be one night.”

 

He pauses, hand on the doorknob. “Stiles...”

 

“I don’t like you that way, Isaac. But I could.” He runs his hands through his hair again, a frustrated motion, and barks out a bitter laugh. “I really, genuinely, seriously could.”

 

Isaac swallows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means,” Stiles sighs. “It means I’m sick and tired of hearing _‘experimenting’_ and _‘phase’_ and _‘curious’_. I’m not some gay test-drive.”

 

“I know you’re not. I... Might not be gay, but I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t treat you like that.”

 

“I know you wouldn’t.” He chews his bottom lip, finally looking Isaac in the eyes. “But I don’t want to get attached to someone who won’t get attached to me.”

 

Isaac lets his words sink in. “I’m so sorry.” He says gently. Stiles nods, and he lets himself out.

 

At the end of the street, he thinks to check his phone.

 

**Scott: (03:04 AM) no actually im not!!! :) lydias at jacksons so im at allisons. u can go back to ours if u want! tell stiles i say whaddup lol gnight guys xxxxxx**

Isaac thanks every deity he can think of, crosses the street and heads home.

 

||

 

Waking up to a quiet apartment is very, very rare. Scott usually has music blasting from his iPod dock in the living room, or is singing at the top of his lungs in the shower, or is playing videogames at an unnecessarily high volume. The silence should be peaceful, but it isn’t. It only leaves Isaac with more empty space to fill with thoughts about the night before.

 

His alarm clock tells him it’s just past noon, which isn’t so bad, because it took him nearly an hour to fall asleep in the first place. A text from Scott tells him that Allison is taking him shopping at a mall in the next town. _All alone today, like I deserve to be,_ he thinks miserably.

 

He rolls out of bed, brushes his teeth, takes a shower, all on autopilot. He can’t shake the memory of the wet press of Stiles’ lips on his, the look of hurt on his face before he left. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. It gnaws at him.

 

He downs some orange juice, makes toast and barely tastes it, tries to do some homework but can’t focus. He tidies up around his room. He vacuums the living room. He washes all the dishes in the kitchen. Scrubs down the bathroom floor and mirrors. He considers steam-cleaning Scott’s carpet.

 

It’s nearly four when he finally throws himself onto the couch, back aching and exhausted. He wonders if he should tell Scott. Or if it’s Stiles’ place to tell him first. Or if Scott would do well to know at all. Should he pretend it never happened? Should he avoid Stiles from now on? He groans out loud, retreats to his room, finds a spare notebook and begins to furiously write.

 

**Possible Courses of Action**

-       **Tell Scott: Could result in loss of friendship, loss of trust, awkward living situation until summer.**

-       **Don’t tell Scott, Stiles will potentially tell him first: Above results but 10x worse because didn’t man up and tell him beforehand.**

-       **Don’t tell Scott, he never finds out: Can never hangout with his friends again because feeling horrible about Stiles, never want to see him sad again if able to avoid it.**

-       **Apologise profusely to Stiles: Might not care. Didn’t care last night. Might find it in him to be forgiving in a month or two. But that’s a long time of not talking to him which is a shame.**

-       **It’s a shame because Stiles is easy to talk to**

-       **And fun to be around**

-       **Good sense of humour**

-       **Good taste in classic horror movies**

-       **Tastes good**

Isaac frowns at the list. It took a turn he didn’t expect.

 

Or maybe he’s just writing the wrong list. He crosses it out and starts again.

 

**The Stiles Stilinski Dilemma**

**_CONS_ **

-       **Not currently in a position where he can trust me (can work on that but it will take time+effort)**

-       **Could turn me down because of reasons stated last night**

-       **If I hurt him, accidentally or otherwise, Scott will break my legs and put my head on a pike (not an exaggeration)**

-       **Smokes a lot (I wish he would quit)**

-       **We don’t know each other very well** **(important... would very much like to change this)**

-       **Not sure of his first name??? (don’t laugh at it if it’s ugly)**

 

He reads over the cons until he’s satisfied that all the main points are covered, then continues.

 

**_PROS_ **

-       **He could be worth it (smart, funny, sweet, cute, good kisser, etc; things I look for in a girl that he also is. Gender is irrelevant?)**

-       **Helped me discover something about myself (a little gay) (I suppose this means I am bisexual) (but would I have sex with a guy?)**

-       **Would I have sex with Stiles?** **(almost tried to last night, but was that the alcohol talking?)**

-       **Stiles is very, very, very interesting**

-       **Also not likely to bore me**

-       **I regret not kissing all of his moles**

-       **I think I regret not kissing him sooner**

-       **I don’t have a brother for him to hook up with after we break up (sorry Camden)**

-       **Stiles is kind of beautiful**

Yeah, he’s in way over his head with this. Looking at someone he’s known for a while in a whole new light is entirely disarming. But remembering the way Stiles said Isaac wouldn’t get attached to him makes his breath catch in his throat. Maybe he’s not attached, but he could be.

 

Maybe he doesn’t like Stiles either, but he could.

 

||

 

Isaac isn’t known for his spontaneity but he has his moments. So after killing time doing laundry and then taking another crack at his homework (with limited success), he drives a little faster than he should and is at the videogame store at twenty after six.

 

On the way, he runs through several scenarios in his mind, all of which involving conversations that alternate from victorious endings to getting slapped in the face. Of course, all the prior preparation goes out the window when he arrives and Stiles is leaning over the counter, leering at a man whose distressing good looking. His muscles are well-defined under his dark henley and he has a little less than a full beard, definitely too old for Stiles and not conducive to his plans at all.

 

However, the bell above the door chimes to signal his arrival, drawing Stiles out of his undoubtedly inappropriate thoughts. “Isaac?” He says, surprised.

 

“Stiles.” He says back. A beat of awkward silence passes.

 

“Uh, this is Derek.” Stiles gestures towards the man between them, who gives Isaac a nod and a curious look. “Derek, this is my friend Isaac.”

 

“Hello.” Isaac says calmly, avoiding his gaze and feeling a gut-wrenching sense of defeat.

 

As if remembering his manners, Stiles steps out from behind the counter. “Can I help you with anything really quickly, since my shifts ends in like, six minutes?”

 

“Um. Yeah.” His eyes dart around the room as Stiles approaches him. “I wanna buy a Sims expansion pack...” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “No I don’t, I hate lying, can we talk?” He adds quickly in a whisper.

 

Stiles purses his lips like he’s considering it, glancing at the clock on the wall, then back at Derek. “Der, I’ve just gotta clean up a bit, I’ll meet you in the car.”

 

He leaves, tells Isaac it was nice to meet him (Isaac begs to differ) and disappears down the street. Stiles looks at him expectantly.

 

“I made a list.” Isaac blurts out.

 

“That’s great.” Stiles says shortly.

 

“According to it, you should go out with me.”

 

“Why on earth would I do that?”

 

“Because I could like you.” He says honestly. “It’s worth giving it a shot. I want to be around you. It’s all on the list.”

 

He opens his mouth and shuts it again a number of times, shaking his head incredulously. “I fail to understand why. I mean, I already told you, I’m not here to see if you _maybe, possibly, might like_ other dudes. Figure it out without me.”

 

“Look.” Isaac scratches the back of his neck impatiently. “I might not have years of homosexuality under my belt—” Stiles snorts at the inadvertent pun. “—But I’m very certain of the way I see you. You’re great. And it turns out that I think you’re fucking cute. And I do want to get to know you better, isn’t that what dating is about? Getting to know someone better, seeing if it’ll work? Granted, I haven’t had the best experience when it comes to relationships but that seems to be the general idea of it, no?” His cheeks burn with embarrassment. “I’m not asking to marry you, Stiles. I’m just asking if I can take you out to a fucking petting zoo or something and then kiss you goodnight.”

 

Stiles is quiet for a few long moments. Isaac bites his bottom lip, ready to leave.

 

“I’ve never seen you so worked up about anything before.” He admits.

 

“Sorry.” Isaac mumbles.

 

“It’s kind of hot.” He shrugs, offering a small smile.

 

“Seriously?”

 

Stiles shrugs again, his smile growing. “Oh, I’m not with Derek, by the way. He’s paying me to fix his computer. He’s also pretty hot. But we aren’t dating.”

 

Isaac nods. “Um... I realize now that it would’ve been really shitty if I had asked you out after your boyfriend had just left.”

 

“That’s true. That would’ve made you an asshole.”

 

He chuckles. “I suppose I’m growing as a person.”

 

The uneasy tension melted away and he breathed a sigh of relief.

 

“This is weird for me,” Isaac continues. “But only because I haven’t wanted to be with someone in a while. I kind of forgot what it’s like.”

 

Stiles crosses his arms over his chest. “I guess I’ll have to remind you then.”

 

||

 

**Isaac: (11:43 AM) should we tell Scott?**

**Stiles: (12:07 PM) not yet. you know how he gets about me. this for your sake, not mine.**

**Isaac: (12:15 PM) are you trying to give me an out or something?**

**Stiles: (12:20 PM) maybe. if you need one, then yeah**

**Isaac: (12:28 PM) not a chance, man. youre stuck with me (whether you want to be or not)**

**Stiles: (12:39 PM) see you Wednesday?**

**Isaac: (12:44 PM) 9pm sharp and don’t even think about bringing your wallet**

**Stiles: (12:51 PM) chivalrous ;) I can dig it**

 

||

 

As far as first dates go, it could’ve been better. Isaac almost wishes he had gone with a traditional movie date when they get to the theatre in a seedier part of town that shadow casts The Rocky Horror Picture Show every last Wednesday of the month, fifteen minutes late. “Siri is a deceitful bitch.” He grumbles, but Stiles singing along to all of Janet’s parts is worth the wait.

 

Covered in glitter and sweaty from a vigorous Time Warp, they pick up Chinese take-out and he follows Stiles as he hops a fence or two. Suddenly Isaac finds himself standing on well-manicured grass beside a miniature windmill.

 

“Stiles. Did we just break into a mini-golf course?”

 

“I prefer to think of it as; we wandered in on a whim and happened to end up here, having nothing to do with the fact that I am a former employee who knows there aren’t any alarms or cameras.”

 

He tugs Isaac along by the hand and they set up their impromptu picnic on top of a hill. They eat noodles and sweet and sour chicken while they play Never Have I ever, and Isaac mentally catalogues the things he learns about Stiles. He’s allergic to cats. He’s in love with Norman Reedus. He can’t pass by a garage sale without looking around. He wants to be a museum curator. He likes when girls smell like coconut.

 

Isaac drops him off and asks to see him again, and counts the evening as a triumph when Stiles kisses the air out of his lungs.

 

||

 

Stiles only lets him tell Scott after their fifth date.

 

“Please don’t be mad at me.” Isaac pleads.

 

“Why would I be mad?” Scott pulls a face. “I trust you, man. I just wish you guys told me sooner.”

 

He grins. “I guess we wanted to wait until we were sure about this.”

 

“Are you?” He asks with a tilt of his head. “Sure about it?”

 

He doesn’t even need to think about it. “Completely.”

 

||

 

The rest of their friends find out shortly after. Boyd and Erica damn near organises him a congratulatory parade when he tells them. Stiles opts to change his relationship status on Facebook and deal with the wall posts of abuse.

 

 _“Listen to this one,_ ‘If this is a joke I swear I will punch you square in the mouth’ _, from the oh-so-classy Lydia Martin.”_ Stiles giggles over the phone one afternoon. His laughter quickly turns to a squawk of indignation. _“Hey!_ ‘He’s out of your league’ _from Danny Mahealani. Are you out of my league?”_

 

Isaac laughs, “You should’ve seen what my ex from back home sent me. I’ve never seen so many different ways of calling someone a ‘lying bastard’ before.”

 

_“Ouch. I’m sorry, dude.”_

“Don’t be. It’s worth it.”

 

_“By the way, I keep forgetting to ask, but are you ever gonna show me that list?”_

“Never.”

 

||

 

May comes and goes. After a short amount of time, they fall into a comfortably domestic routine. They don’t have any classes together, but they walk together when they can, and grab lunch together a few times a week. When Stiles isn’t working, they hang out, make dinners together, watch classic Doctor Who, and suffer through their friends’ ruthless interrogations about their sex life.

 

“It’s none of your business what we do!” Stiles snaps.

 

What he doesn’t say is that what they do is next to nothing. They both want to go slow, and it’s working for them. Nothing below the belt yet, nothing that oversteps any boundaries. They spend a lot of time cuddled up together and Isaac has very intimate knowledge of the delicate skin of Stiles’ neck, and they’re okay with it so far. He is jacking off more than he used to, but it’s worth the baby steps, Isaac thinks. This is worth doing right.

 

Freshman year draws to a close and after a hectic few weeks of exams, headaches, a close call with a psychotic break that almost ended in relapsing into old coffee habits, Isaac can say he completely earned the right to lounging in his boxers for two days straight, doing nothing but napping and eating ice cream out of the tub and being putty under Stiles’ hands.

 

“Are you going home for summer?” Isaac asks on their way to the library. He’s returning books he’s glad to finally be rid of.

 

“Yeah, I promised my dad. I could only get four weeks off work though.” Stiles slips his hand into Isaac’s. “What about you? Did you decide if you’re going to your mom’s?”

 

Isaac’s parents divorced when he was just a kid, his mom moved halfway across the country with his older brother. His dad was not very loving, nor was he easy to love, so he doesn’t blame her for leaving. He had long since gotten over his abandonment issues and he loves her because she’s his mother, but that’s as far as his fondness goes. He stayed with his dad until he passed in a drunk driving accident right before he left for college and he hasn’t seen his mom since the funeral, but before that, he hadn’t seen her since he was eight. With Camden stationed overseas, she’s the only family he has this side of the world.

 

“Do you think I should?”

 

“Family is important.” Stiles says resolutely. “Even if it’s only for a few days, you should still go.”

 

The next day, he asks Stiles if he will come with him, cut his trip home short and spend a week at his mom’s, as someone there for moral support. He doesn’t want to go alone. He doesn’t think he can do it without Stiles. He kisses Isaac’s knuckles and says _of course,_ but only if Isaac spends a week in Beacon Hills with him, too.

 

||  
  
Isaac buys a new camera for the occasion. He didn’t have one in the first place, so he figures splurging a little for a DSLR is worth it. Stiles picks him up from the airport in a powder blue Jeep that looks to be held together by duct tape and the grace of God, tells him what a hipster he looks like toting that camera bag around. ( _“I’m rubbing off on you, babe. Maybe you’ll start buying vinyls next.”_ ) The drive to Beacon Hills is long and he points out remarkable places as they go, like Stiles’ high school, the tree he fell out of when he broke his arm, the coffee shop that sells the best danishes known to man, the park where he smoked his first cigarette when he was fifteen. He snaps pictures of everything.

 

Sheriff Stilinski ( _“It’s John, son. Call me John.”_ ) sets him up in the guest bedroom and shows him four entire photo albums of Stiles as a baby. “When he was born, he had the biggest head out of all the other babies in the hospital, I swear.”

 

“ _Genim_.” Isaac reads aloud. “Babe, your name’s Genim?”

 

“Dad.” Stiles barks from the kitchen.

 

“And this is him looking especially accomplished after he used the potty.”

 

“Dad, I swear to God.”

 

He turns the page, and it’s a family photo at Disneyland. Stiles’ hair is buzzed short, he’s missing his front teeth and hugging his mother around the legs.

 

“She was beautiful.” Isaac says.

 

“She was.” John concurs. “That’s who Stiles gets his temper from.”

 

Isaac flips the page and peers closely at the picture of six-year-old Stiles in a bath tub. “Stiles, do you really have a cluster of moles shaped like a strawberry on your hip?”

 

_“Both of you are eating tofu tonight, I am throwing this chicken out the window.”_

John chuckles, leaning back on the couch. “You’ve really never seen it?”

 

“No sir.” Isaac shrugs.

 

He looks at him curiously. “I like you, Isaac.” He decides. “Have a beer with me after dinner. How do you feel about baseball?”

 

||

 

The week goes by too quickly for Isaac’s liking. They go for runs through the preserve every morning, they go through Stiles’ old laptop and laugh at his porn collection, and eat deliciously greasy diner food behind John’s back. Stiles happily introduces him to his neighbours and childhood friends who flocked home for the holidays. He also makes sure to stop by Mrs. McCall’s and get more salsa.

 

“This is my boyfriend, Isaac.”

 

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get sick of hearing that.

 

The night before their flight to Isaac’s mom’s, he takes an obligatory photo of them kissing and uploads everything to Facebook. The longer he looks through the album, the candids of Stiles singing and barbequing and wearing Isaac’s cardigans, the more he realizes that slowly, little by little, he is falling in love.

 

||

 

He thinks about sex. Specifically, sex with Stiles. He thinks about it at badly chosen moments, like when Stiles falls asleep on his shoulder on the plane and Isaac has to spend three hours watching an Adam Sandler in-flight movie with a boner. He imagines holding him down and getting to know every inch of his body, where he’s ticklish, where he’s the most sensitive, sucking marks into his flesh to hide under all his layers of ridiculous plaid shirts.

 

That incident kind of opens his eyes, makes him realize how close they are to actual fucking _intercourse_. Things get too heated. Clothes start coming off. But for one reason or another, they stop themselves, laying still until their heartbeats slow down, laugh off the awkwardness. Stiles will look at him with wide eyes and Isaac knows he’s got to control himself. But he wants it, he wants to share that with Stiles, but he doesn’t want to push it if he isn’t ready. So he resolves to wait. It’s been almost four months, he can hold out for a little longer.

 

But he knows about Stiles’ drawer. They haven’t really talked about it, but he’s opened it by accident while looking for deodorant. It’s the bottom drawer of his dresser and is probably the most organized part of his room. Two red solo cups full of condoms on one side, a shoebox with maybe four dildos and possibly a _buttplug_ on the other side, and in between, a selection of squirt tubes of lubricant. He thinks he saw handcuffs, but he shut it too quickly to be sure.

 

It inspires him to drive to the next town, to a store Ethan gives him a ‘ _welcome to the club’_ gift certificate for. He walks through the aisles for half an hour before he gets the nerve to pick out a small blue vibrator. Why not, right? Just for practise.

 

But it sits at the bottom of his closet, pristine and untouched in it’s packaging, when he decides the first time he gets anything in his ass, it should be Stiles.

 

||

 

His mom, Pauline, picks them up from the airport, meets Stiles for the first time (meets any of Isaac’s partners for the first time, for that matter) and hugs them both tightly. He recognizes her perfume as the same one she wore when he was a kid, and he blinks back the tears that prickle his eyes.

  
Stiles notices, squeezes his hand but doesn’t say a word.

 

She takes them out for dinner to a restaurant that Isaac argues is too expensive, and Stiles shows off by ordering for everyone in French. It makes Isaac blush, especially when he winks at him.

 

The initial catching up is awkward, but not as bad as he originally thought it would be. She’s still a dentist, lives in a big house with two white pugs named Tybalt and Mercutio, she teaches young women’s self-defense at the community centre on the weekends. Isaac gets to stay in Camden’s old room and Stiles gets the guest room across the hall, but the look Stiles gives him tells him to leave the door unlocked.

 

They go grocery shopping and they take the dogs for walks. They explore the city. Pauline gets them tickets to the museum. They go to a show and check out the local music scene and Stiles somehow manages to chat up a group of drag queens, not that Isaac would’ve put it past him in the first place. Stiles cuts back to four cigarettes a day, buys Isaac a leather jacket and makes him model it for him without a shirt on underneath. He steals the camera to take pictures of it all.

 

Stiles crawls into his bed and they fall asleep curled up against each other, too hot under the covers but refusing to move for anything. He thinks he hears him whisper _I love you_ one night, but he drifts off before he can reply.

 

||

 

“So, a boyfriend.” Pauline says conversationally while she and Isaac rinse the dishes and load them into the dishwasher. Stiles snores lightly on the couch in the living room, Tybalt snuggled up to his side.

 

“Yeah, mom. I have a boyfriend.” He says protectively.

 

“I’m not saying anything bad about it, sweetheart. I just didn’t expect it.”

 

“Well, honestly, neither did I.”

 

She dries her hands off on a dishtowel. “He’s a lovely young man. You both are. I’m glad you came to visit, and I’m glad you’re happy.”

 

The difficult fact that his dad wouldn’t have accepted it hangs unspoken in the air. He was strict, an old fashioned kind of man, didn’t believe in tolerance. _Weakness_ , he called it. Neither wants to acknowledge it, so it sits and festers like an old wound.

 

“He’s the first guy I’ve ever liked,” He confesses. “I don’t want to fuck it up.”

 

“Let it happen naturally, don’t overthink it.”

 

Later that night, while he pins Stiles under him on the bed, he can’t think at all. It begins as a good night kiss and somehow along the way, they start rutting against each other. Isaac’s so pent up that he’s one good thrust away from cumming in his shorts, and he yelps when Stiles suddenly grabs handfuls of his ass. “Sorry, sorry, fuck.” He quickly rolls off him, pulling the sheets over his tented boxers.

 

“What’s wrong?” Stiles sits up, a sharp look of concern marring his features.

 

Isaac pouts. “Nothing. It’s just, I know we haven’t talked about. Doing. Stuff.” He says haltingly. “I just didn’t want to... You know. Besides, it’s just not the time or place. I mean, we’re at my mom’s, for Christ’s sake.” He laughs weakly. He definitely has to go jerk off in the bathroom but it’s a small price to pay if it means showing Stiles how much respect he has for him, to wait for him, to make it special. “It’ll be better when we’re both, um, ready.”

 

Stiles’ lips draw into a thin line. “Yeah.” He says simply. “I figured.”

 

||

 

The problems don’t really start until they get back to campus.

 

Isaac’s not the clingy type. He knows better than to be the jealous type, either. He knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that kind of abuse and he prides himself on being secure and trusting in his relationship. Girls, boys, a lot of people like Stiles. And what’s not to like? It would be draining to concern himself with all of them.

 

Stiles says he’s too busy to hang out one night, which is fine. Everyone is entitled to their own space. It happens again a few more times in the next week, which is strange, but Isaac doesn’t mind. He’s not sure what Stiles is busy doing but it must be important to him. He makes a point of it to stop by the videogame store during his shift to drop off half a dozen red velvet cupcakes.

 

“Maybe he’s planning your five-month-anniversary surprise.” Scott muses one day.

 

Isaac laughs. “Ha. Maybe. Wait, when _is_ our anniversary?” He pulls his phone out, scrolls through the calendar. His mouth tugs down into a frown. “If we’re going by our first date... Our five months already passed.”

 

“No way?”

 

“Yeah. Couple days ago.” He sighs and rubs at his temples. “I didn’t even see him that day, shit.”

 

“You two don’t hang out much anymore, do you?” Scott asks. “Honeymoon phase over?”

 

Isaac shrugs. “He’s just been busy. I mean, school’s starting soon, we’ll both be busy. We’ll make it work though.”

 

So he plans a dinner at this Italian place that comes highly recommended by Boyd, makes the reservations on a night he knows Stiles doesn’t have work. “It’s pretty formal,” He tells him. “But I love how you look in blazers.”

 

“I can’t go.” Stiles says, “I have plans.”

 

“With who?” Isaac demands, before apologising and taking a deep breath. “Sorry. I just feel like we haven’t spent time together in the past two weeks.”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous. I _just_ spent two entire weeks traveling with you. Forgive me if I wanted a _little_ distance.”

 

“Are you getting tired of me?”

 

Stiles gives him a long look. He doesn’t know what it means, and it scares him. “No, baby. I’m not getting tired of you. I’ll cancel, we’ll go to dinner.”

 

He spends half the time texting on his phone. Isaac’s stomach churns, he barely touches his food. Stiles asks to be dropped off at his own place and doesn’t invite him in. The goodnight kiss lingers in his mouth, acrid and sour with the taste of cigarettes.

 

||

 

Scott invites him on a road trip to Jackson’s beach house for three days before school starts up again. “It’s just gonna be a bunch of us, we’re bringing up kegs, it should be fun. You should definitely come.”

 

“Okay. Did you ask Stiles, can he get the days off work?”

 

Scott blinks, then laughs resentfully. “We aren’t inviting Stiles.”

Isaac raises his eyebrows. “What? Why not?”

 

“You’ll have to ask him that yourself.” He shakes his head. “Dude has none of my respect right now.”

 

Isaac looks over at his phone on the desk. He hasn’t checked it in a couple of hours, so he should have at least one message from Stiles by now. But he doesn’t.

 

“Like I said, you should definitely come.” Scott continues. “Let me know after you talk to your boyfriend.” He doesn’t miss the sarcastic tone of his voice.

 

||

 

He paces back and forth, his heavy footsteps against the wooden floor to offset the gentle rainfall outside, tapping at the glass of Stiles’ window.

 

Stiles sits cross-legged on his bed, hands clasped and held over his mouth like he is holding in a scream.

 

“When were you going to tell me.” Isaac asks flatly, not looking at him. Desperately looking everywhere else.

 

“I don’t know.” Stiles says.

 

“Were you just going to wait until someone else told me? Or, were you expecting me to just catch you one day?” He tries to keep his voice steady, controlled, the way his father did when he was ramping up to scream at him.

 

“We didn’t do anything.” He says for the umpteenth time.

 

Isaac nods. “Maybe you didn’t. But I wouldn’t know that.”

 

“You don’t trust me?” He accuses.

 

“I wanted to.” Isaac counters. “I want to. But it’s not so fucking easy when your boyfriend is going behind your back to hang out with the guy he slept with right before you started dating.”

 

Stiles lets out a shaky breath. “So, Scott told you about me and Derek.”

 

“Yeah. He did.” He looks at Stiles now, who isn’t looking back at him. “Just tell me why. Did I do something? What did I do to you?”

 

He scoffs. “You didn’t. And that’s the problem.” He smirks and it’s scathing. “You don’t want to touch me. You make me feel like I’m disgusting or something. We’ve been together nearly six fucking months and all you want to do is fucking _kiss_ like we’re in the eighth grade, Isaac. If you really didn’t want to do this anymore, if you changed your mind about guys, you should have fucking said so, instead of stringing me along because you’re too nice to fucking dump me.”

 

Isaac stays silent, lips pursed.

 

“So yeah, I started hanging out with Derek again. We talk, we play video games, we watch movies, we get coffee. I could’ve fucked him again. I could’ve, but I didn’t.” He swallows hard. “He wants me. I forgot what that felt like, to feel wanted like that.”

 

After a long pause, Isaac shakes his head. “You’re fucking unbelievable.”

 

“What, my own boyfriend won’t fucking touch me—”

 

“Maybe because your boyfriend wanted to wait until you said it would be okay.” Isaac says, barely louder than a whisper, but it shuts Stiles up immediately. His heart pounds, a sick twisting feeling in his chest. “Maybe he remembers a very poignant speech about how you didn’t want to be used for sex. Maybe he’s been holding himself back because you don’t push someone into that—”

 

Stiles narrows his eyes. “This whole time you thought I didn’t want it?”

 

“Yeah, actually.” Isaac crosses his arms over his chest. “Because you didn’t say otherwise. I was being patient, Stiles. I was trying to be good to you. It wasn’t a matter of having sex with my boyfriend. It was proving and showing him that I thought I loved him.”

 

Stiles looks at him, eyes red with tears threatening to spill over, lips parted just so, in such a way that Isaac has to physically _stop_ himself from kissing the emotion off his face. “I should’ve talked to you.” He laments.

 

“Yes. You should have. But you didn’t.”

 

Stiles gets off the bed, stands up, tries to reach for his hand. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,”

 

“I told you. That night, I fucking told you I wouldn’t treat you like that. Stiles, I wanted everything to be so good between us.” Isaac takes a reluctant step back. It’s getting harder and harder to keep calm, to keep from yelling or throwing something or completely breaking down. It hurts so much that it starts to go numb. It’s like the room is closing in on him. He can’t breathe. “I can’t.”

 

“Are we breaking up?” Stiles’ voice rises. “Are you breaking up with me?”

 

Isaac clenches his hands into fists. “No. I just need time. I have to think.”

 

“Babe.” He says louder, pleading. “I love you too, Isaac, don’t do this, I fucked up but I can fix it,”

 

He slams the door shut and gets the hell out of there, leaves his heart behind him.

 

||

 

He goes on the road trip to the beach and keeps his phone in his luggage where he can’t compulsively check his texts. The sun burns hot overhead and he spends a lot of time under an umbrella, reading Palahniuk to torture himself.

 

On the last night, they have a bonfire and drink whiskey in the sand. Allison invites her friends, the ones from the party he never got around to texting back, and they don’t look half as good in firelight as Stiles would have.

 

||

 

**Stiles: (05:17 PM) can we talk?**

**Isaac: (05:20 PM) i’d rather not**

**Stiles: (05:22 PM) please hear me out.**

**Isaac: (05:30 PM) not yet.**

||

 

“He’s still miserable.” Scott says by way of a greeting when he walks into Isaac’s room without knocking.

 

Isaac glares, then looks away. “We didn’t break up. We’re just _taking a break._ Besides, I didn’t do anything.”

 

“I didn’t say you did.” He leans against the desk with a heavy sigh. “He says he’s in love with you.”

 

His heart clenches. “That’s nice.”

 

“He really hates himself right now, Isaac. I saw him wearing your Joy Division shirt and crying into a smoothie this morning.”

 

“Waste of a smoothie, if you ask me.”

 

Scott groans. “Don’t be a jerk. What was that stupid saying Allison always tells me? Something about a house...” He looks up and slightly to the left, his ‘thinking’ face. “Relationships are like a house, if something breaks, you don’t move to a new house, you’re supposed to just repair it? Something like that.”

 

“I have homework to do.” He mumbles, turning his attention back to his laptop. “I don’t have time for this.”

 

Scott tosses a pen at his head and he doesn’t bother trying to dodge it. “You’ll have to talk to him eventually, man.”

 

||

 

**Isaac: (09:01 PM) are my grey jeans are your place?**

**Stiles: (09:06 PM) yes. i can wash them for you, drop them off later.**

**Isaac: (09:11 PM) Scott will be home tonight, i’m going out though. leave them with him pls**

**Stiles: (09:13 PM) I would really like to see you..**

**Isaac: (09:20 PM) not tonight.**

**Stiles: (09:21 PM) when then?**

**Isaac: (09:25 PM) I don’t know yet.**

||

 

“How long’s it been?” Erica runs her fingers through the hair just above the nape of his neck. It tickles and he pulls away from it; it reminds him of too many nights trying to fit comfortably on a cramped bed.

 

“Couple days.” He says vaguely, eyes on the television but not really watching.

 

From his seat on the other couch, Boyd gives him the same stern look Scott has been giving him for days. “One week, five days. You want to know how I know?”

 

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

 

“Because Stiles is in two of my classes, and he gives me an update every day on how much he misses you, and I swear to god he’s written _Stiles Lahey_ on the cover of one of his notebooks.”

 

He wants to smile at that, but bites down hard on his bottom lip instead. “He’s overdramatic, that’s just how he is.”

 

“And you’re stubborn; everyone has their vices.” Erica points a manicured finger in his direction. “I think you miss him, too.”

 

“Of course I fucking miss him.” He grunts. “I just don’t know what to do.”

 

“Figure it out,” She pats him on the arm. “And then talk to him. At least to prove that he’s the one who sucks at communicating, not you.”

 

He can’t decide if he’s sad or mad. _Betrayed_ , most likely. He can’t move on if he doesn’t forgive Stiles, and he knows that. But he doesn’t know if he wants to move on at all.

 

||

 

He’s got an hour between classes and nothing to do but watch _The Mighty Boosh_ on his laptop to pass the time. The library is empty, but he plugs his headphones in anyway to be courteous. It’s too late to pack up and leave by the time he realizes Stiles has pulled up a chair beside him.

 

“Hi.” He says. He looks too worn out for a Tuesday afternoon.

 

“Hey.” Isaac says back. The few times he’s seen Stiles since the fight haven’t been easy, and he has a sinking feeling that it won’t ever get easier. There’s always the split second of elation (Scott calls it the _‘puppy in love’_ look) before he remembers, and then the heartache feels fresh all over again.

 

“I didn’t mean to ambush you.”

 

“It’s fine.” He lies, puts one of his headphones back into his ear and does his best to give off the vibe that he wants to be left alone.

 

“Still hate me?”

 

“I never hated you.”

 

“Well... Still don’t wanna talk to me?”

 

“We’re talking right now.” He responds coolly.

 

Stiles clears his throat, his voice shakes. Isaac itches to pull him close. “I stopped talking to Derek. Completely done, he’s gone.”

 

“You didn’t have to do that. As you’ve proven, you can do whatever you want with whoever you like.” Isaac reminds him, only half paying attention, but not even Old Gregg is making this situation less painful for him.

 

“Well, that’s what I wanted to do.”

 

“Not the point.” Isaac resists the urge to grind his teeth. “You shouldn’t have to stop seeing your friends because it interferes with your relationship. I never wanted that for you.”

 

Stiles ruffles his hair in annoyance. “Well what the fuck do you want me to do, dude? I’ve begged, I’ve waited, I’m sick of feeling like shit. You told me you could like me, I gave you the chance to find out.” He gets up and pushes his chair back roughly. “It’s bullshit that you won’t give me ten minutes of your time after all we’ve been through, but here.” He hands him a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Here’s _my_ fucking list. Call me when you’re done running from this.”

 

||  
  
Naturally, Isaac ignores the offending piece of paper as long as he can before morbid curiosity gets the best of him. It spends all night stuck in his wallet until he unfolds at some ungodly hour of the morning, blaming it on poor judgement caused by lack of sleep, having nothing to do with the fact that Mumford and Sons came on his iTunes shuffle. (Apparently, he likes to subject himself to masochistic sentimentality.)

 

Many things are scribbled out or smudged, written over in different colours of pen, and the paper is creased and soft like it had been folded and refolded a number of times.

 

**ISAAC ALEXANDER LAHEY: THE MAN WHO DOESN’T CALL ME BY MY FIRST NAME EVEN AS A JOKE EVEN THOUGH I WOULDN’T BE THAT MAD IF HE DID BUT HE STILL DOESN’T (AND THAT’S HOW I KNOW I LOVE HIM)**

** First Impression **

  * **So fucking tall omg**
  * **HOT**
  * **Seems douchey (who wears a scarf in September, it’s like 95 degrees??)**
  * **Doesn’t seem to have anything in common with me except Star Wars (teamed up with me to yell at Scott that one time because that little asshole still hasn’t seen any of the movies wtf)**
  * **Very invested in school work**
  * **Would probably look good in eyeliner but we’ll never know**
  * **Nice**
  * **Too nice**
  * **Suspiciously nice (possible axe murderer)**



** Overall Review  **

  * **Still very tall**
  * **Still hot, reminiscent of a Greek God in certain lighting, especially in my old Beacon Hills lacrosse jersey (I should’ve taken a picture for my own personal uses ahem)**
  * **Not douchey whatsoever, but still wears scarves when there’s no need for one**
  * **Have some things in common**
  * **Other things, not so much (sorry I just can’t watch glee, ironically or sarcastically)**
  * **Invested in school work bc genius with a full scholarship (WOWZA DAD WAS STOKED ABOUT THIS ONE)**
  * **Can do a convincing British accent**
  * **Still nice**
  * **Too nice**
  * **Didn’t deserve the shit I pulled**
  * **Best**
  * **Kisser**
  * **Ever**
  * **God, I miss that mouth**



**_Things I wish Isaac Knew:_ **

**1)** **I’m in love with the little smile that tugs at his mouth when he tries not to laugh at my dumb jokes**

**2)** **The fact that he fucking waited for me is probably the most romantic thing in the history of romance**

**3)** ** He’s the first guy I ever brought home to my dad and I’ve had 4 boyfriends before him. **

**4)** **Before we left his mom’s, she gave me a picture of him dressed up like a sunflower when he was 2**

**5)** **I quit smoking because I plan on living a long, healthy life (with him?)**

**6)** **I think we should get pugs because their squishy faces remind me of Isaac’s when he’s still trying to wake up in the morning**

**7)** **I can get really poetic about his jawline and his eyes like what colour even are they??**

**8)** **I’m really sorry I suck at talking about my problems and I promise to work on that**

**9)** **I still have his name in my phone saved as “Is’ Is’ Baby”**

**10)** **I care about him more than I anticipated I would**

**11)** **The moment I realized I loved him was when we were buying groceries for his mom and I looked over at him intensely scrutinizing two bunches of bananas against each other and I thought “wow, I could be with this dork a very long time and be okay with it”**

**12)** **But then I messed up really badly, the way I mess up everything good in my life**

**13)** **This list is making me sad to write, I’m going to stop now**

**bby,**

**I know we had a rough start. But we built it into something wonderful, and I’m so glad it happened. I’m disappointed in myself for how it ended, I’m angry with my own actions, and I’m upset that you’re being too stubborn to let me try to mend things between us. Even though I’m mad as hell, I guess there’s nothing left for me to do but wait. You waited for me, and now it’s my turn. It hurts, and I miss you like someone has taken the sunlight out of my life, but there’s no one I’d rather be waiting for. You’re stuck with me (whether you want to be or not).**

**Yours,**

**ss**

 

||

 

Yeah, he loves Stiles. Forgiveness comes easier, now that he knows that for sure. But the trust and everything else, that needs some work. Their foundation is pretty solid, he thinks. It’s just the rest of the house that needs some TLC.

 

||

 

He shows up at the videogame store at eleven in the morning on a Saturday because putting it off any longer is giving him a nosebleed.

 

“Stiles.” He says loudly, realizing belatedly that the store is not, in fact, empty. Several customers turn to look at him, and Stiles pokes his head out from the back room.

 

“How may I help you?” He asks hesitantly.

 

“Oh, no, I should probably get going, actually.” Isaac nods towards the front door. Stiles visibly deflates. “I just came to let you know that, uh, according to your list, we should stop taking a break.”

 

“Yeah?” He perks up a little, eyes wide.

 

The people around them are really looking now. Isaac tries not to scowl at them. “Yeah.” He agrees. “I’m not really one to dispute a list, so...”

 

“Come over at five.” Stiles smiles. It occurs to Isaac that he hasn’t seen Stiles smile in a while. It looks good on him, feels even better to know that he’s the cause. “I just got all the Harry Potter movies on blu-ray.”

 

“How the hell did you afford that?”  
  
He shrugs. “A _‘_ stop moping’ present from Lydia.”

 

Isaac laughs. “She tried to give me another dildo.”

 

“Another?” Stiles coughs. “You had a _first_ one?”  
  
He looks over at the other people in the store. “Uh, we’ll talk about that later.”

 

||

 

The sushi Stiles orders them comes forty minutes late. Halfway through _The Prisoner Of Azkaban_ and right before Isaac could get his hand into Stiles’ pants, the building’s fire alarm sounds and they grumble all the way out the emergency exit. Stiles screams at Greenberg for setting it off ( _“Who the fuck leaves chicken fingers in a toaster oven for an_ hour _? Are you new to modern technology?”_ ) until the fire department lets everyone back in. All in all, their second first date goes pretty badly. It’s fitting though, because it makes Isaac think that things can only get better from then on, and they do.

 

||

_“Where do you see yourself in ten years_?”  Stiles asks over the phone one morning. He has a habit of initiating deep conversations while grocery shopping. He once argued the existence of god while inspecting bags of vegan, gluten-free quinoa and ignored Isaac for three hours for calling him a _typical hipster_.

 

“Being a teacher, hopefully. And living in Seattle, I always wanted to go there.” Isaac lays in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. “Can you pick me up some French onion dip?”

 

 _“Mhmm.”_ Stiles hums. _“I’d move to Seattle.”_

“I think you’d miss California sunshine.”

 

_“Small sacrifice to make, considering I’d miss you more.”_

“You’re such a sap.” Isaac sighs contentedly.

 

_“Cut me some slack, dude. It’s hard not to get cheesy and sweet when it comes to you.”_

“Speaking of sweet,” He glances over at his laptop across the room. “Your dad emailed me a bunch of pictures of your baby cousins. I think it was Mark’s birthday a few days ago?”

 

_“Yeah, he just turned four! I totally forgot. Fuck.”_

“Well, from what I could tell from the pictures, he’s in some sort of Thomas the Tank Engine phase. We can swing by Walmart later, and I can mail it tomorrow before class.”

 

 _“Good call, baby.”_ Isaac blushes, preening in the privacy of his own room. _“You’d be a good dad, you know. Sorry if that’s weird to say. I don’t know how you feel about children.”_

Truthfully, he doesn’t know either. “I guess I just don’t want to turn into my dad.” He confesses.

 

_“I don’t see that happening. I think you’d be great. Do you even want kids?”_

“We’ll see.” Isaac smirks. “Put on something nice and find me after lunch.”

 

_“Oh, ha-ha.”_

He laughs to himself. “I was kind of being serious.”

 

_“Well, biologically—”_

“Shut up, Stiles. I’m suggesting having sex with you and you’re trying to tell me the science behind the reproductive system.”

 

A loud clattering sound on the line makes Isaac roll his eyes. “You just ran the cart into something, didn’t you?”

 

 _“So what if I did?”_ Stiles sputters. _“I’m just trying to process the fact that my boyfriend is offering to finally make love to me—wait, that’s what you meant, right? Like literal penetrative anal sex? Are you sure? I know we were doing the whole waiting thing again.”_

Isaac clears his throat. “Yeah, I mean, if you still wanted to.”

_“Hell yes! Just checking! I mean, I know you gave me a handjob two days ago, which was really good by the way, you did much better than I did on my first try.”_

“Thanks?”

 

_“So, when? Where? Jesus, now I have to put this non-sexy kale back and get oysters and dark chocolate and other aphrodisiacs and oh my god, I’m about to have a panic attack.”_

“Deep breaths.” Isaac rolls his eyes. “And don’t you dare put my onion dip back.”

 

||  
  
They plan it for a week later. Not on purpose or anything; they’re pretty busy on the following days and it’s on a night when they don’t have any significant plans the next morning, which is better for their schedules. In any case, the anticipation keeps them blissfully on edge, and the burning looks Stiles gives him as the day approaches makes his heart lurch. It’s really happening, and Isaac can’t think of anyone else he would rather do this with.

 

Stiles shows up at his place just after seven, kissing him on the cheek when he arrives. “No rose petals leading to the bedroom? No Barry White? Not even candles?” He clucks his tongue and surveys the living room. “You’re slacking, buddy.”

 

“I really hope you’re joking.” Isaac frowns. “I didn’t know you’d want it to be like _that_. I might have like, one candle—”

 

“I’m joking, obviously.” Stiles smacks him on the arm. “Grand, elaborate gestures are wasted on me, when all my attention belongs solely to you.” His fingers slide up his bicep and give it a firm squeeze.

 

Isaac pulls him in for a proper kiss, tasting faint traces of chocolate and spearmint gum. He holds Stiles around the waist and revels in his warmth, in the solidity of his body, how Stiles clings to him like a koala bear. “Hungry?” Stiles shakes his head. “Thirsty?” He shakes his head again. “Just asking. Did you have a good day?” He mumbles against his lips.

 

“Meh. It’s about to get better, though.” Stiles whispers with a grin.

 

“Excited, huh?”

 

“Are you kidding? Big Red’s batteries ran out from how excited I’ve been.”

 

Isaac groans. “Do not tell me you named a sex toy _Big Red.”_

“Well it’s big and red, what else was I supposed to call it?”

 

He pouts. “How big is it, exactly?”

 

Stiles cackles. “Nothing intimidating. I promise. Are we going to do the dirty or what? You should carry me like your blushing virgin bride.”

 

“Yes, because you’re such a virgin.” Isaac peels his t-shirt off and throws it at him. “Come on, to our marital bed, _Mrs. Lahey_.”

 

“You know what, I changed my mind, why can’t you be _Mrs. Stilinski?_ ” Stiles protests, putting his hands on his hips. His shirt rides up a little under his fingers, and Isaac catches a glimpse of his boxers and nearly melts.

 

“Babe.” He says. “You remembered.”

 

“And so did you.” Stiles bites his lip.

 

“Captain America underwear.” Isaac snorts.

 

“From the first night we kissed.”

 

“That was a disaster.”

 

“I know.” Stiles nods. “I can’t blame you, though. No one is impervious to the siren call of the Stilinski Booty.”

 

“You’re ridiculous.” He sighs, hooking his fingers into the waistband of the boxers. “But you’re not wrong.” Isaac carefully takes his glasses off, leads him to his room, and keeps the lights on because he doesn’t want to miss a thing.

 

||

                                                            

If Isaac was nervous at all, it fades the moment he finds out what Stiles’ naked body feels like pressed against his. In the hours that follow, they learn every dip and curve of each other’s bodies, worshipping every scar, every freckle, every sensitive patch of skin that flushes pink with a gentle bite. In the hours that follow, Stiles lights a fire within him and he feels so _alive._ They go slow and then they go fast, begging and moaning and licking and kissing anything they could reach, and then starting all over again. Stiles is patient and encouraging and Isaac understands what it feels like to be so overwhelmed with adoration that your heart feels like it’s going to burst. It’s perfect, and he says so, and the bruises on their hips prove it. Before they fall asleep, sweaty and sticky and deliciously sated, he wonders aloud how he ever thought he was better off alone.

 

“My dick feels like it’s going to fall off. I love you.” Stiles whispers.

 

“I love you.” Isaac agrees.

 

||

 

They wake up more or less at the same time, getting started on breakfast together after courteous good-morning blowjobs with even more declarations of love and their mutual intentions to keep each other around forever. Stiles sits in his lap while they eat and effectively distracts him from his bacon and eggs but he can’t bring himself to mind too much. They head back to bed and get as far as undressing again before Isaac’s phone starts beeping insistently.

 

“Hang on.” He grumbles, grabbing it off the nightstand.

 

A dozen messages, missed calls, and Facebook alerts from the night before greet him. He raises an eyebrow.

 

“What is it?” Stiles climbs on top of him, straddling his legs and running his fingers lazily up and down Isaac’s stomach.

 

Isaac selects the notification telling him Scott has tagged him in a picture. A blurry selfie appears on his phone screen, of Scott grinning widely and giving the thumbs up as he poses right beside a doorknob.

 

That’s his apartment’s doorknob. There’s a tube sock tied around it.

  
The caption reads, _‘ **ATTA BOYS!!’**. _ As expected, their friends responded with lewd comments and winky faces.

 

“Oh yeah,” Stiles smirks. “I got up to pee when you were asleep and I couldn’t help myself.”

 

“Baby. This is a historic moment!” Isaac says. “I just sexiled Scott. _We_ just sexiled Scott.”

 

“It was a long time coming. Worth the wait, though, I hope?” Stiles smiles proudly.

 

Isaac pulls him in and kisses him hard on the mouth. “You certainly were.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Epilogue**

 

“You’re getting better and better at this.” How Stiles still manages to talk around a mouthful of dick is beyond Isaac’s comprehension.

 

“At what?” Isaac asks breathily, gripping the sheets in his hands and trying not to thrust upwards into the wet heat of his mouth.

 

“At relaxing.” Stiles clarifies, Isaac’s dick still between his lips, and he’s two fingers deep in him and slowly working in a third.

 

“Oh.” He says, wincing a little at the burning stretch. “Great. Except, can you slow down?”  
  
Stiles stills his movements and pulls off, Isaac’s cock popping wetly out of his mouth. “Too much?”

 

He nods. “Sorry. Just not feeling it today. It was good, though.”

 

Stiles frowns. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

 

“Yes, don’t worry about it.”

 

Still frowning, he ducks down between Isaac’s legs again and gives his asshole a firm lick.

 

“ _Fuck.”_ He shoves a fist in his mouth and bites down. “Warn a guy, will you?”

 

“My bad.” Stiles says sweetly, moving again to swallow his length to the back of his throat and Isaac feels like his eyes are going to roll into the back of his head. Stiles gags a little and tongues at the vein running down the side, making Isaac swear he’s about to die the world’s most blissful death, even more so when he sits up to watch and sees Stiles’ hand between his legs.

 

“Jesus, are you fingering yourself?”  
  
With his free hand, he tugs gently at Isaac’s balls. “We should set up more mirrors in here, yeah? So you can watch me do it.” Stiles muses, moaning low and quiet. He leans his cheek against Isaac’s thigh, looking at him with darkened eyes. “Just—ah—give me a second, I wanna ride you.”

 

This will never get old. Isaac is definitely going to die and it’ll be the best way to go.

 

“Can you get a condom from under the bed?”

 

“You keep condoms under our bed?” He reaches over, feeling around on the ground for the little plastic packages.

 

“Judge me all you want, it’s still efficient.”

 

Isaac chuckles. “Can’t argue there. My boyfriend’s a little sex genius.”

 

Stiles smiles contentedly, nipping at his inner thigh. “I’m going to ride the shit out of you, dude.”

 

He tears the condom wrapper open and slides the latex down his shaft, locates their tube of lubricant and coats himself with it. “Bring it on.”

 

He situates himself on his knees, one hand on the headboard for balance (bought specifically for that purpose) and the other steadying Isaac’s cock as he sinks down on it. “God, yes.” Stiles sighs, unhurriedly taking him inch by inch. Isaac’s toes curl. “I could write sonnets about your penis, Isaac. _Sonnets_. That’s what I’m going to give you as a graduation present; a book of sonnets about your genitalia.”

 

Isaac snorts, reaching between them for Stiles’ dick. “I’ll get you a book on how to improve your dirty talk.” He tugs at it gently, enjoying the solid weight of it in his hand. He smears precum over the flushed pink head, gathering it with his thumb and licking it off. “Hey, remember when you thought I was grossed out by your body?”

 

“Not my body,” Stiles grunts, now fully seated and rocking back and forth a little. “Gayness. Gay sex. With a guy. Me, specifically.” He babbles (as he tends to do), eyes closed and tilting his head back ever so slightly. The little moles decorating the long lines of his neck tempt and tease him.

 

Isaac rests his hands on Stiles’ hips, encouraging the motion. “Never ever, baby.”

 

“Mmm. You are my favourite.” He leans in for an open-mouthed kiss and grinds down harder against him.

 

“Am I?” Isaac holds his hips in place and thrusts up into him until Stiles bats his hands away so he can bounce up and down at his own leisure. Isaac rolls them over, holds Stiles’ hands above his head and attacking his neck collarbones with sloppy licks and nibbles. “That’s a big responsibility.”

 

He moans and trembles under him, nipples pebbling as Isaac drags his fingertips over them. “Three years and counting, and you’ve managed great so far. Still the bestest _ever_.”

 

“And don’t you forget it.” He whispers into his ear and speeds up his movements, pressing him down and fucking him straight into the mattress. Stiles is as responsive as he’s always been, wildly vocal, saying Isaac’s name like a prayer and making the most beautiful faces conveying sheer pleasure. He used to resist, fight back against Isaac’s unyielding hold, but not anymore; he knows now to trust Isaac, that Isaac will take care of him. It’s a promise they made when they were young and dumb, and of all the whirlwind changes their lives went through, it’s the one thing that remains unchanging.

 

“Love you, so much.” Stiles says, panting, back arching. He grabs a fistful of his curly hair and tugs, making Isaac groan loudly.

 

“The things you do to me, I swear. We could do this till the day I die and I would be in love with every second of it.”

 

He locks his ankles around Isaac’s back. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Especially when you’re balls deep inside me.” His dick twitches pathetically, wetness pooling on his stomach.

 

Isaac slows down, slides a band between them and traces a finger around where he’s stretching Stiles open. “We’ll talk about it later, though, right?”

 

“What? Oh, okay, whatever you want.” He nods distractedly, shifting his hips up and scratching his fingers down Isaac’s back. “Come on, make me cum, I have to check the oven soon.”

 

He sighs. “Really?”

 

“The sweet potatoes will _burn,_ Isaac. Hop to it.” He clenches down around him and makes him hiss. “We’ll go for round two after dinner, I swear.”

 

“Fine, you win.” Isaac settles into a relentless pace, plants his lips on Stiles’, wraps his hand around his cock. He knows by now how to get the right angle, how to fuck like he’s a dying man. Stiles’ ass feels like heaven but he’ll be damned before he says that out loud.

 

Stiles curses loudly, digging his heels into Isaac’s sides. “Yeah, pretty boy, that’s more like it.”

 

“Don’t call me that.” He pinches Stiles’ nipple and makes him whimper.

 

“But you’re pretty.”

 

He kisses him again just to shut him up and Stiles moans into his mouth, growing louder and more desperate as works his length faster and faster in his fist. Isaac gets light-headed from the effort, settling his face in the crook of Stiles’ neck, where his sweat is salty and hot. “I never break my promises, especially to you.” He murmurs.

 

Stiles whines beneath him, fidgeting and rocking back against him. Isaac pounds into him, muscles cramping from the exertion.

 

“When I say forever, I mean it. Understand?”

 

“Yeah.” He says pitifully.

 

“Can’t hear you.” Isaac bites at his earlobe.

 

“ _Yes,_ for the love of god, Isaac!” He writhes and swears, seizing up and he lets out a broken sob when his orgasm rips through his body. He comes in warm pulses all over his chest, coating Isaac’s hand. He lets go and grips the headboard, anchoring him.

 

Stiles mumbles incoherently, urging him on, praising him. He grabs Isaac’s face and sucks on his bottom lip and it’s like an electric shock, then Isaac is falling over the edge, his climax punching the air out of his lungs. He lets himself have a moment of laying on top of his lover before carefully pulling out and flopping down beside him, discarding the condom in the waste basket beside the bed. “Stiles.” He grunts after a few minutes. “You don’t even like sweet potatoes.”

 

“Yeah, but you love them.” He states like it’s the most obvious fact in the world. With that, he kisses Isaac once more before putting on his shorts and heading to their kitchen.

 

Later, after frantic phone calls to Scott and Erica, Isaac grabs an old notebook and tries to come up with a list. He doesn’t get past the first point, because it’s the strongest argument he can make, and it’s all he needs.

 

 

 

 

 

||

 

**Reasons To Propose After Graduation:**

  * **Didn’t respond well to the idea of “forever”, but there’s no one else I would rather wait for**



**Author's Note:**

> (+10 pts if you caught the community reference!) and this was my first attempt at this pairing! i actually wrote this pretty quickly, there's gotta be a ton of tense errors and weird sentence structures and for that i apologize, but i hope you enjoyed it as much as i enjoyed writing it. i have a lot of feels about these two. you can reach me on tumblr at [thorgasmed](http://thorgasmed.tumblr.com).


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